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Topic: Oracle bone

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	NationMaster - Encyclopedia: Oracle script (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-12)
		Oracle bone script (甲骨文 pinyin: Jia3gu3wen2) are incised characters found on ox scapula and tortoise plastrons (oracle bones) thought to be the earliest Chinese characters.
		Oracle bone script is seen to develop over the several generations of Shang kings, so there is no single defined form of for each character.
		Oracle bone script (Chinese: 甲骨文; pinyin: jiǎgǔwén; literally "shell bone writing") refers to incised (or, rarely, brush-written) ancient Chinese characters found on oracle bones, which are animal bones or turtle shells used in divination in ancient China.
	www.nationmaster.com /encyclopedia/Oracle-script (556 words)

	Oracle Script Language (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-12)
		Oracle Bone Script is the oldest known form of Chinese written language.
		In English literature, it is commonly called "oracle bone script," because some of the objects are thought to be used as oracles, though the script language was not restricted to just oracle applications.
		Initial determination places the new found oracle bone scripts to be at least 3,200 years old in the Shang Dynasty.
	www.chinapage.com /oracle/oracle00.html (169 words)

	Oracle bone
		Oracle bones were first fully excavated from the Anyang site in Henan Province China in 1899.
		Oracle bones found in the 1970's have been dated to the Zhou period, with some dating to the Spring and Autumn period of the later Zhou Dynasty.
		They were also called dragon bones on account of their discovered use when they were found sold in Chinese medicinal centres either whole or crushed for the healing of various ailments.
	www.wapipedia.org /wikipedia/mobiletopic.aspx?cur_title=Oracle_bone (183 words)

	oracle bones - HighBeam Encyclopedia
		oracle bones bones used for divination by the Chinese during the Shang dynasty (traditionally c.1766 BC-c.1122 BC).
		The bones were heated to produce cracks from which "yes" or "no" answers were somehow derived.
		Discovered in the ruins of the Shang capital of Anyang in the late 19th cent., they were first sold as so-called dragon bones to be ground up for use in Chinese medicinal compounds and only received the attention of scholars in the 1920s.
	www.encyclopedia.com /doc/1E1-oraclebo.html (307 words)

	Oracle
		An oracle is a person or agency considered to be a source of wise counsel or prophetic opinion; an infallible authority, usually spiritual in nature.
		The oracle also allegedly proclaimed Socrates the wisest man in Greece, to which Socrates said that if so, this was because he alone was aware of his own ignorance.
		The word "oracle" is used by Tibetans to refer to the spirit that enters those men and women who act as media between the natural and the spiritual realms.
	www.dejavu.org /cgi-bin/get.cgi?ver=93&url=http://articles.gourt.com/%22http%3A%2F%2Farticles.gourt.com%2F%3Farticle%3DOracle (669 words)

	Untitled Page
		Oracle bones entered the picture as the standard medium through which the Shang communicated their hopes, desires, fears, and expectations to the various numina constituting their religious milieu, typically through the intercession of the spirits of their ancestors.
		As an acknowledged corpus, oracle bones share a narrow range of common characteristics that make it possible immediately to qualify an object as belonging or not belonging to the category; they are thus possessed of a “style” in a recognizable sense, if not that in which Gell uses the term.
		It is possible, then, to consider a group of oracle bones that constitute a temporally contiguous and spatially distributed set of indexes of the agency of a specific individual – precisely the criteria satisfied by the oeuvre as Gell considers it.
	www.columbia.edu /~sf2220/Thing/web-content/Pages/oracle2.html (1701 words)

	Untitled Document
		The oracle bone inscriptions received their name after their content which is invariably related to divination.
		These bones typically had three sections: a question for the oracle (charge), the oracle's answer (prognostication), and whether the oracle later proved to be correct (Verification).
		Shells and bones have been found with notations incised on with a knife, listing question and answer, plus a later notation on whether the answer proved itself true.
	www.plu.edu /~madrigfa/OracleBones.html (378 words)

	Valuable oracle bones unearthed in NW China
		Chinese archaeologists have discovered two oracle bones, including one inscribed with the most number of characters ever in a single find, in northwest China's Shaanxi Province.
		Oracle bones, or inscribed animal bones and tortoise shells, were first used for divination by kings of the Shang Dynasty (16th Century BC - 11th Century BC).
		Oracle bone inscriptions, which resemble the cuneiform writing of the ancient Near East and hieroglyphic writing of ancient Egypt, were discovered more than 100 years ago.
	www.chinadaily.com.cn /en/doc/2004-01/03/content_295477.htm (239 words)

	Fate Manipulation
		These oracle bones have baffled the experts, but one theory is they were contain predictions so sensitive politically that they were considered to be "state secrets", the ancient equivalent, perhaps, of a top secret microfilmed file.
		Knowledge of the bones and their use passed out of human ken, to be rediscovered in the dying years of the Chinese empire in late 19th century.
		The best of the Oracle Bones were packed up in crates to save them from destruction and they began a bizarre 12-year odyssey around China, moving with the Nationalist Chinese government, first to the wartime capital of Chungking, and finally in 1949 to Taiwan as the Communist armies of Mao Tsetung conquered the mainland.
	www.earnshaw.com /fate_manipulation/fate03.html (4320 words)

	oracle - Search Results - MSN Encarta
		Oracle, response delivered by a deity or supernatural being to a worshiper or inquirer; also, the place where the response was delivered.
		Oracle Corporation, one of the world’s largest software companies and a leading supplier of database-management systems.
		The Chinese written language is of an old and conservative type that assigns a single distinctive symbol, or character, to each syllable.
	encarta.msn.com /encnet/refpages/search.aspx?q=oracle (161 words)

	oracle bones
		However, his and his friends’ interest in the mysterious “dragon bone” did lead to a search for the place of origin of the bone, and to extensive excavation—legal and otherwise—to feed the desires and curiosity of scholars and collectors (to say nothing of the pocketbooks of antiquity dealers).
		In fact, the information to be found on the oracle bones helped confirm the historicity of the Shang dynasty itself, which until the bones’ interpretation was all but certain.
		Preparations for oracle bone pyromancy—only one of a number of different divination techniques used in the course of Chinese history—involved sawing, scraping, and smoothing the bones with bronze tools, after which a series of pits (zuan)—round or oval indentations—were created in the back.
	www.columbia.edu /cu/lweb/indiv/eastasian/starrnews/oracle_bones.html (919 words)

	Pictographic characters
		Oracle Bone and Bronze Inscriptions and Xu Shen’s Shuowenjiezi
		Oracle bone characters were inscribed on tortoise shells and the shoulder bones of oxen with sharp instruments.
		Oracle bones inscriptions were discovered only a little more than 100 years ago.
	www-rohan.sdsu.edu /dept/chinese/aspect/oraclebon.html (631 words)

	Agriculture
		Oracle bone specialist agree that this grain was Shang's most widley used grain.
		Oracle bones do not contain much refrences to the mai, which tells archeologist that it must have been introduced from Western Asia.
		NI, is interpreted as wild rice, occurs in the oracle bones once, but was known to be harvested in An-Yang, which was the beginning of domestication of rice in China.
	www.plu.edu /~madrigfa/Agriculture.html (653 words)

	Oracle Bones presented in History section
		Holding the flat bones over the fire or inserting a hot bronze stick into a hole drilled in the surface of the bones, the diviners were able to tell good or bad by reading the emerged cracks.
		Hundreds of these oracles bones were stored in the king’s archives, and they are the first testimonies of Chinese history and writing.
		The oracle bone inscriptions are a further proof of the script- and document-oriented spirit of the Chinese people.
	www.newsfinder.org /site/more/oracle_bones (903 words)

	Chinese Language and Script
		These are the so-called Oracle Bone Inscriptions (jiaguwen) which were found at the site of the last Shang capital near present-day Anyang, Henan province.
		The discovery of the oracle bones in China goes back to 1899, when a scholar from Peking was prescribed a remedy containing "dragon bones" for his illness: "dragon bones" were widely used in Chinese medicine and usually refer to fossils of dead animals.
		The language and calligraphic style at this stage is similar to that found on the oracle bones.
	www.crystalinks.com /chineselang.html (1356 words)

	Ancient Writing from the Ruins of Yin (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-12)
		The Shang royal household at the Yin capital used tortoise shells and animal bones in their divination practices and, after completing the divination, related records were then inscribed or written on them.
		There are also a number of oracle bone inscriptions unrelated to divination which mostly record events such as hunting trips.
		Inscribed oracle bones are mainly from the Yin Ruins of the late Shang; that is, the period roughly from the end of the 14th to the middle of the 11th century BC.
	www.npm.gov.tw /english/exhbition/eyin0701/en.htm (291 words)

	Chinese Script
		They are therefore called pictographs and, in style and structure, are already quite close to the inscriptions on the oracle bones and shells, though they antedate the latter by more than a thousand years.
		The inscriptions on these bones tell us that by 1200 BC Chinese writing was already a highly developed writing system that was used to record a language fairly similar to classical Chinese.
		The oracle bone inscriptions received their name after their content that is invariably related to divination.
	www.crystalinks.com /chinascript.html (3095 words)

	News \| TimesDaily.com \| TimesDaily \| Florence, AL (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-12)
		The Shang-dynasty oracle bones were unearthed in 19th-century China, and were sold as dragon bones in the traditional Chinese medicine markets, used either whole or crushed for the healing of various ailments, including knife wounds.
		Along with the oracle bones were discovered eleven royal-sized tombs.
		A few of the oracle bones found still bear their brush-written records, without carving, while some have been found partially carved.
	www.timesdaily.com /apps/pbcs.dll/section?category=NEWS&template=wiki&text=oracle_bone (1339 words)

	Ancient Writing from the Ruins of Yin
		The first person to undertake the systematic research of oracle bone inscriptions was the late Ch'ing scholar Sun Yi-jang (1848-1908).
		Although the latter two recognized that oracle bones represented Shang divinatory writings, it was only with Lo Chen-yu (1866-1940) and Wang Kuo-wei (1877-1927), that the contents of the inscriptions became clear as the divinations by the late Shang royal house.
		Between 1928 and 1937, the era of scientific excavation of oracle bones began.
	www.npm.gov.tw /english/exhbition/eyin0701/s-03.htm (489 words)

	Oracle Bone Inscription (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-12)
		What survived from this time are the minutes of divination engraved on shoulder bones of oxen and tortoise shells.
		When a hot bronze rod was pressed on the bone, which cracked on the other side, and the nature of the cracks led prophets to make forecasts.
		Fulfilling all three conditions that define Chinese calligraphy - esthetic quality in stroke, structure, and alignment, oracle bone inscription is the first form of the art.
	www.rice-paper.com /uses/calligraphy/calligrapher/oracle.html (157 words)

	Chinese History - Shang Dynasty å• literature and philosophy (www.chinaknowledge.de)
		Inserting a hot bronze stick into a hole drilled into the surface of the bones, the diviners were able to tell the future by interpreting the emerged cracks.
		Hundreds of these oracles bones were stored in the king's archives, and these oracle bone inscriptions (jiaguwen ç”²éª¨æ—) are the first testimonies of Chinese history and writing.
		Unlike the many documents written on bamboo strips that definitely did exist before the oldest oracle bones but that have decayed since long, the bones were preserved and can give us a lively insight into the daily life of the Shang upper class and its political and leisure time activities.
	www.chinaknowledge.de /History/Myth/shang-literature.html (1288 words)

	Oracle bone inscriptions
		Since late the 19th century, many oracle bones of turtle shells and animal bones discovered at Anyang were found to bear carved inscriptions which are refereed to as "oracle bone inscriptions".
		They are so far the most ancient writtings system in China, which kept abundant information on politics, economy, military and science of the Shang Dynasty.
		Oracle bone inscriptions recorded the activities of the royal family of the Shang Dynasty.
	www.chnmus.net /html/20060526/515930.html (95 words)

	Bone Casting Oracle
		Bone Casting from the heartlands of Africa for you all over the world.
		Bones have a part to play in our lives already - although the significance is watered down.
		The oracle of the bones is blunt in its wisdom and can often be seen as "telling it straight".
	www.elevated.fsnet.co.uk /bones.html (396 words)

	Ancient China: The Shang, 1766-1050 BC
		Most of these records are "oracle bones," which were used to divine the future.
		The question to the oracle would be written on the bone, and then its answer, and then the real outcomes.
		These bones, however, contain the names of the kings of the dynasties and prove that the Chinese accounts of Shang history, which were once believed to be myth by Western historians, are incredibly precise.
	www.wsu.edu /~dee/ANCCHINA/SHANG.HTM (685 words)

	Shang Dynasty oracle bones (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-12)
		The inscribed bones found this time are from four "tanfang" of Shang culture layers.
		Oracle Script is an ancient script carved on tortoise shells or animal bones.
		All the dates and results of the divination were written down on the shells or animal bones, which became the earliest historical document with writing symbols.
	www.mirabilis.ca /archives/000656.html (293 words)

	E-Commerce News: CRM Systems: Oracle's Critical Next Steps
		When the mini-computers and their makers went to the bone yard, Oracle continued humming away by introducing tools and financial applications as it embraced client server computing.
		Oracle has created a new category of software which I have heard called "instant legacy" meaning that regardless of the product plans and futures of acquired applications, with Oracle at the helm, it's a new ball game.
		As for the installed customer base -- the real prize Oracle was shooting for -- when it's time to look for the next generation of business applications, smart buyers will still perform their due diligence and Oracle will very likely be invited to propose.
	www.ecommercetimes.com /story/46246.html (1281 words)

	Chinese Stem Branch Oracle Bone (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-12)
		Inscriptions on the oracle bones represent one of the earliest extant forms of writing in China.
		Recorded in these inscriptions are accounts of important national events and the daily life of the royal household in the late Shang dynasty (about 1300 B.C.) The first dicovery of oracle bones was in 1899.
		Incriptions were then carved on the bones recording the events for which these divinations were sought.
	www.chineseastrologyonline.com /OracleBone.htm (154 words)

	Translation (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-12)
		This "oracle bone" dates from the reign of King Wu Ding in the Shang Dynasty.
		Such oracle bones were used by ancient Chinese rulers for divination.
		The questions asked of the bones (and sometimes also the prognostications and the actual outcomes) were then carved into the bones.
	faculty.vassar.edu /brvannor/translation.html (187 words)

	Amazon.com: Oracle Bones: A Journey Between China's Past and Present: Books: Peter Hessler (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-12)
		Made of cattle shoulder blades or turtle undershells, the oracle bones were heated until they cracked, making a sound that supposedly captured voices from departed ancestors.
		The oracle bones, of course, are metaphors for the loosely connected tales Hessler himself has assembled here; read together, they help us divine something essential about the nature of China today.
		Oracle Bones is a compelling novel with two major threads; the current exodus of young Chinese from the country into industrial/population centers and much of the history responsible for shaping current conditions and culture.
	www.amazon.com /Oracle-Bones-Journey-Between-Present/dp/0060826584 (2724 words)

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